Press copper fittings provide secure, reliable joints for plumbing connections. Specially engineered O-rings in the sockets of the fitting are tightened onto the tube or piping using a press-fit tool. A watertight seal is created by applying pressure from the press-fit tool, which tightens the O-ring onto the tube, ensuring a perfect fit.
Using press fittings, plumbers can install tubing and pipes with less trouble in less time and effort than what is required when using other methods, such as soldered or threaded fittings. Press fittings allow plumbers to spend less time on site. With press fittings, plumbers create strong, long-lasting joints with significant time savings, especially on large-diameter applications. The installation process bypasses the need for extensive tube preparation and time-consuming material use. Additionally, using press fittings requires fewer accessories and allows plumbers to avoid purchasing, storing and carrying accessory materials, such as gases, fluxes, solders, adhesives, threading machines and related materials and equipment. To install press fittings, the plumber needs only a press tool and the appropriate size jaws.
In addition to press fittings that require a pressing tool to form a joint, push fittings are also available to plumbers. Push fittings do not require a pressing tool to join the fitting to tubing. Instead, a toothed grab ring in the push fitting locks onto the tubing and holds it in place in the fitting socket. An O-ring in the push fitting forms a watertight seal. When installing push fittings, a plumber simply has to push the tubing into the socket and a joint is formed without further pressing, solder or adhesive.
The installation of press fittings or push fittings is intrinsically clean and creates no mess. No extra site cleanup is needed once the job is done, and there is never a chance for adhesive, flux or solder to contaminate the bore because those materials are not needed and never used with press or push fittings.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention.